Years later, 9/11 dust, fumes cause headaches: study

WASHINGTON — Exposure to dust and fumes caused by the collapse of the World Trade Center during the September 11, 2001 attacks can cause headaches years later, according to a study released Wednesday.

"We knew that headaches were common in people living and working near the World Trade Center on and immediately after 9/11, but this is the first study to look at headaches several years after the event," said study author Sara Crystal of the New York University School of Medicine.

The study involved 765 people who were enrolled in the Bellevue Hospital World Trade Center Environmental Health Center seven years after the building collapse and who did not have headaches prior to the 2001 attacks.

About 55 percent of the participants reported having exposure to the initial World Trade Center dust cloud.

Forty-three percent of those surveyed said they had headaches in the four weeks prior to enrolling in the study, and people caught in the initial dust cloud were slightly more likely to report headaches than those who were not.

People with headaches were also more likely to experience wheezing, breathlessness during exercise, nasal drip or sinus congestion and reflux disease after 9/11.

"More research needs to be done on the possible longer-term effects of exposure to gasses and dust when the World Trade Center fell," Crystal said.

"We also need additional studies to understand the relationship between headaches, other physical symptoms, and mental health issues."

The full study will be released at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology's annual meeting in Toronto in April.

"More research needs to be done on the possible longer-term effects of exposure to gasses and dust when the World Trade Center fell," Crystal said.

I am sure it is true that more research needs to be done on this subject, and I'd support it. But the World Trade Center did not fall. It was pulverized. And I hope someone can point out to these researchers that it might be useful if someone did research on what might have caused the buildings to be pulverized in this way. That might help prevent future health catastrophes of this kind.

I posted the following that I had received by email from Kevin Ryan on 4 August 2008:

"My co-authors and I have a new article published today, in the Springer journal The Environmentalist. It is called 'Environmental anomalies at the WTC: evidence for energetic materials.'http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10669-008-9182-4

Many thanks to the Bloomington 9/11 Working Group for help with the related FOIA, and to attorney Mick Harrison for his generosity in making the article freely available to all, instead of by subscription only. In case you missed our last mainstream journal article, 'Fourteen points of agreement with official government reports...', here is a link to that paper. www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCIEJ/2008/00000002/00000001/35T...

And if you are one of those who is not wholly dependent on the mainstream, please see the many fine peer-reviewed articles at The Journal of 9/11 Studies." www.journalof911studies.com.

Received: 17 February 2008 Accepted: 14 July 2008 Published online: 4 August 2008

Abstract - Investigators monitoring air quality at the World Trade Center, after the September 11th attacks, found extremely high levels of volatile organic chemicals as well as unusual species that had never been seen before in structure fires. Data collected by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency indicate striking spikes in levels of benzene, styrene, and several other products of combustion. These spikes occurred on specific dates in October and November 2001, and February 2002. Additionally, data collected by researchers at the University of California Davis showed similar spikes in the levels of sulfur and silicon compounds, and certain metals, in aerosols. To better explain these data, as well as the unusual detection of 1,3-diphenylpropane, the presence of energetic nanocomposites in the pile at Ground Zero is hypothesized.